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@set mytitle GNU Status Reports: January 2011
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Copyright @copyright{} 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@quotation
Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
@end quotation
@end copying
@dircategory GNU organization
@direntry
* GNU Status 2011-01: (gnustatus-2011-01). GNU status bulletin, January 2011.
@end direntry
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@title @value{mytitle}
@author @email{maintainers@@gnu.org}
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@node Top
@top @value{mytitle}
This document collects status reports for GNU packages.
This is a revival of the GNU Status Reports from the historical
@cite{GNU's Bulletins}, @url{http://www.gnu.org/bulletins}. The goal
is to provide GNU-wide news and information from time to time, from as
many packages as possible.
This report includes items for only a few of the hundreds of GNU
packages; we hope more will be represented in future installments.
@url{http://www.gnu.org/manual} lists all GNU packages, with links to
online manuals and home pages. All GNU packages can be accessed on
the web via @indicateurl{http://www.gnu.org/software/@var{pkgname}},
as shown in the headings here.
See also @url{http://planet.gnu.org}, which aggregates the individual
GNU news items posted on Savannah (@url{http://savannah.gnu.org}).
See also the @email{info-gnu@@gnu.org} mailing list, where
announcements of new GNU releases are posted. Subscribe or view the
archives at @url{http://@/lists.gnu.org/@/mailman/@/listinfo/@/info-gnu}.
The aim of the present report is to be somewhat higher-level and more
general than the others, although there is inevitably some overlap.
Questions, comments, and suggestions about this document in general
are welcome; please email @email{maintainers@@gnu.org}. Issues for
specific packages should of course be addressed via their usual routes.
@menu
* Binutils::
* Coreutils::
* Electric::
* Freefont::
* Gawk::
* GCC:: GNU Compiler Collection.
* GNUCOMM:: GNU Telecom subsystem.
* GNUtrition::
* Grep::
* GSASL:: GNU Simple Authentication and Security Layer.
* GSEGrafix::
* GSL:: GNU Scientific Library.
* GSRC:: GNU Source Release Collection.
* Guile::
* Hello::
* Hurd::
* Texinfo::
* XBoard::
@end menu
@node Binutils
@unnumbered Binutils (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils})
From Nick Clifton: The GNU Binary Utilities project (@code{binutils}
to its friends) is continuing active development. Version 2.21 has
just been released containing many bug fixes and some new features:
@itemize @bullet
@item Support has been added for the TMS320C6000 (TI C6X) processor
family and Renesas RX processor families.
@item Support has been added for the Alpha VMS target.
@item The linker option @option{--add-needed} has been renamed to
@option{--copy-dt-needed-entries} in order to avoid confusion with
the @option{--as-needed} option.
@item The linker's @file{.def} file syntax has been extended by
allowing the syntax @code{== @var{id}} for imports and exports. This
allows aliases of the import/export table names to written in PE
image.
@item The @code{objcopy} program now supports a
@option{--interleave-width} option to allow copying a range of bytes
from the input to the output with the @option{--interleave} option.
@item The readelf tool can now display ARM unwind tables using the
@option{--unwind} option. It can also display dynamic symbol tables
with the @option{--dyn-syms} option.
@item A new tool @command{elfedit} has been added to directly manipulate ELF
format binaries.
@item The @command{addr2line} tool now accepts an @option{--addresses}
option to display the address before function name or source filename.
It also accepts @option{--pretty-print} to have a more human readable
output.
@item @command{gas} now understands an extended syntax in the
@code{.section} directive flags for COFF targets that allows the
section's alignment to be specified.
@item @command{gas} also has a new command line option
@option{--compress-debug-sections}, which requests compression of
DWARF debug information sections in the relocatable output file.
Compressed debug sections are supported by @command{readelf},
@command{objdump}, and @command{gold}, but not currently by GNU
@command{ld}.
@item The @command{gold} linker now supports @code{MEMORY} regions in
linker scripts.
@end itemize
Meanwhile work continues on @code{ld} to add support for plugins and
compressed debug sections. @code{gold} is improving and soon will be
able to replace @code{ld} for linking important projects like the
Linux kernel.
The next release of the binutils is expected in the middle of 2011.
@node Coreutils
@unnumbered Coreutils (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils})
From Jim Meyering and P@'adraig Brady: We've just released
@file{coreutils-8.9}, which fixes a number of relatively important
bugs
(@url{http://@/savannah.@/gnu.@/org/@/forum/@/forum.php?@/forum_id=6662}
for 8.8,
@url{http://@/savannah.@/gnu.@/org/@/forum/@/forum.php?@/forum_id=6679}
for 8.9). Most were in @command{sort} and were introduced via the
parallelization support that was added in @file{coreutils-8.6}.
The only significant non-bug-fix change was to add a useful set of
features to @command{split} that lets you split input into @var{n}
roughly-equal pieces, with options to split on line boundaries or not,
and, when honoring line boundaries, to distribute lines in a
round-robin fashion or not. See the manual via @samp{info split} for
details and examples, or online at
@url{http://@/www.@/gnu.@/org/@/software/@/coreutils/@/manual/@/html_node/@/split-invocation.html}.
Some of the hardest work on coreutils is knowing what to reject and
providing appropriate justification to the contributors. The
contributions below all came in recently, and while good ideas, they
were not included for various reasons detailed on the mailing list.
@table @code
@item test -ed
Using stat in a shell function was deemed sufficient.
@item touch -R
@code{`find . -exec touch -am @{@} +`} is more general.
@item df autoscale
@code{df -h} was thought good enough.
@item df/ls --blocksize=@{decimal,binary@}
Though more correct, it was deemed overkill.
@item sha1sum --raw | base64.
@code{`openssl dgst -sha1 -binary $file | openssl enc -base64`}
was deemed available enough.
@item @var{command} --examples
This would need to be accepted into the GNU Coding Standards first.
@end table
On the upcoming front, we should soon resume work on getting the
FIEMAP (efficient sparse copying) code into the master development
branch
@url{http://@/git.@/savannah.@/gnu.@/org/@/cgit/@/coreutils.git/@/log/@/?h=fiemap-copy}.
@node Electric
@unnumbered Electric (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/electric})
From Stuart Rubin: The Electric VLSI Design System is a complete CAD
package for integrated-circuit design. It lets you draw schematics,
draw IC layout, and even use textual hardware-description-languages.
It has many tools for analysis and synthesis, and can interface to
many more.
Electric has been free software from the Free Software Foundation for
12 years now and continues to be developed and distributed.
Currently, the Electric development team is employed by Oracle, and
they have just released version 9.00.
@node Freefont
@unnumbered Freefont (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/freefont})
From Steve White: In GNU FreeFont release 20100919, several language
scripts were added:
@itemize @bullet
@item Cherokee, Osmanya, Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics,
Tifinagh, Armenian (serif), Vai, Kayah Li.
@item Coptic, Glagolitic.
@item Buginese and Persian were patched.
@item Many characters were added to old Cyrillic ranges.
@end itemize
In addition, Sinhala was replaced by a version taken from the @TeX{}
font @code{sinh} by Yannis Haralambous.
Several of the symbol ranges were expanded, and a few glyphs were
corrected.
Several technical improvements were made to font tables, some of which
should improve display.
For more information, see
@url{https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=6518}.
@node Gawk
@unnumbered Gawk (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk})
From Arnold Robbins: Gawk has been seeing lots of progress recently.
A major new release is in the works and should be ready within a few
more months. New stuff includes:
@itemize
@item New internals, providing along with them a debugger!
@item Built-in file inclusion
@item Indirect function calls
@item @code{BEGINFILE} and @code{ENDFILE} patterns
@item @code{FPAT} variable for content-based field splitting
@item IPv6 support
@item Arrays of arrays
@item @emph{Lots} of code cleanup and doc clean up too
@item Other features and changes, see NEWS in the git repo
@item Moved from CVS to GIT
@end itemize
@node GCC
@unnumbered GCC (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc})
From Gerald Pfeifer: The last couple of months have seen several GCC
(GNU Compiler Collection) releases, first GCC 4.4.5 in October, then
GCC 4.5.2 in December and we are working full steam to brush up the
first release in the 4.6 series
(@url{http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.6/changes.html}).
GCC 4.6 will bring support for the Xilinx MicroBlaze softcore
processor on the backend and a new frontend (and run-time library) for
the Go language, plus many new Objective-C features, such as declared
and synthesized properties, dot syntax, fast enumeration, optional
protocol methods, method/protocol/class attributes, class extensions,
and a new GNU Objective-C runtime API.
GCC 4.6 is also adding a new optimization level @code{-Ofast} that is
@code{-O3} with options that can affect standards compliance but
result in better optimized code. The link-time optimizations (LTO) we
introduced with GCC 4.5 have been improved, stabilized and reduced in
terms of resource consumption which allows GCC to build itself or
Mozilla Firefox with LTO. As a user you can control how many
compilations to execute via -flto=N. Inlining heuristics and
interprocedural optimizations have been tuned heavily, too.
Back to frontends, stack checking for Ada has been tightened and now
detects all overflows on several platforms; experimental support for
the upcoming C1X standard has been added, new function attributes
@code{leaf} and @code{callee_pop_aggregate}, and a new warning
@code{-Wdouble-promote}. Support for the upcoming C++0x standard has
seen a lot of love and care and C++ code generation can be tuned more
finely (cf.@: new options @code{-fstrict-enums} and
@code{-fnothrow-opt}).
On systems supporting the new libquadmath library, GNU Fortran now
also supports a quad-precision, @code{kind=16} floating-point data
type (@code{REAL(16)}, @code{COMPLEX(16)}). The @code{-fwhole-file}
command-line option is now enabled by default which improves code
generation and diagnostics, and both Fortran 2003 and Fortran 2008
support have seen their fair dose of enhancements.
In terms of platform enhancements, @code{-march=core2} (and
@code{-mtune=core2}) provides support for Intel Core@tie{}2,
@code{-march=corei7} for Intel i3/i5/i7 and @code{-march=btver1} gives
you support for AMD Bobcat (family 14). Darwin, FreeBSD, MinGW and
Cygwin now all support @code{__float128} on 32-bit x86 targets. MIPS
now supports the Loongson 3A processor and s390x added full support
for the zEnterprise z196 processor with a number of new instructions
facilities.
As far as operating systems go, GCC provides a convenient way of
building native libraries and applications for the Android platform
and on Windows @code{#pragma push_macro} & @code{#pragma pop_macro},
decimal floating point and more have been added.
Should you find any issue testing this forthcoming release, or any
other, please make use of our updated Bugzilla at
@url{http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla}.
@node GNUCOMM
@unnumbered GNUCOMM (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gnucomm})
From David Sugar: GNUCOMM is the umbrella name for the GNU Telephony
system. It includes several packages: Bayonne, Sipwitch, and
supporting libraries ccAudio, ccRTP, ccScript, and CommonCPP.
The ZRTP communication protocol is spreading as a free (as in freedom)
means to communicate privately with GNU GPL licensed software. We are
close to releasing ZRTP for Android (@code{libcppzrtp} already builds
on the Android NDK), along with a complete Android client built off of
CSipSimple for Android.
We of course continue to maintain full compatibility and
interoperability with the emerging IETF ZRTP draft standards, and with
ZRTP for Android will now cover even more users. Previously we saw
GNU ZRTP4J, which is used in SIP Communicator (a cross-platform Java
client for GNU/Linux, OS/X, Windows, and others), as well as Twinkle
(a QT ZRTP agent), so ZRTP for Android will extend this reach further.
In GNU uCommon, there is also greater emphesis on secure communication
and crytographic practices in application development, using a new
secure library which was introduced earlier this year. It also acts
as a generic wrapper for either GNUTLS or OpenSSL (with a configure
preference for the former). This is still evolving. It fits into our
overall effort in developing secure communications and promoting
privacy in application development by default by making it easier to
do so, an overall goal for GNU Telephony.
@node GNUtrition
@unnumbered GNUtrition (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutrition})
From Jason Self: I'm working to rewrite GNUtrition in C with SQLite
instead of depending on an external SQL server, a modern UI, and some
extra features. I plan to unveil the new version at LibrePlanet in
March.
The food database is being upgraded. The current version of
GNUtrition uses a very old version (from 1999) so it's time to
upgrade. This means more information on more foods---2,000 or so new
food items.
@node Grep
@unnumbered Grep (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/grep})
From Jim Meyering: Grep saw several maintenance releases in 2010.
There have been a few minor bug fixes since the last release, and
there's at least one pending, unfixed bug that is triggered when
performing a case-insensitive search that finds a match on a line
containing a Turkish upper-case @code{I}
(@url{http://@/thread.@/gmane.@/org/@/gmane.@/comp.@/gnu.@/grep.@/bugs/@/3413/@/focus=3417}.
Once that is fixed, I expect to make another release.
@node GSASL
@unnumbered GSASL (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl})
From Simon Josefsson: GSASL is the GNU Simple Authentication and
Security Layer library. During December 2010 a new stable release
(1.6.0) was published, which includes support for the two most recent
SASL mechanisms: SCRAM and GS2. These are the new generation of SASL
mechanisms, intended to replace (over time) the older CRAM-MD5,
DIGEST-MD5 and GSS-API mechanisms.
The development series for the next stable branch has been started
already, and plans include improved GS2 support for non-Kerberos
mechanisms, support for the two SAML mechanisms that are discussed in
the IETF, and more. Now is a good time to join the mailing list and
contribute to the project!
@node GSEGrafix
@unnumbered GSEGrafix (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gsegrafix})
From Spencer Buckner: GSEGrafix is a GNOME application which uses an
anti-aliased GNOME canvas for creating scientific and engineering
plots. The program is written in C and reads ASCII parameter files
and data files. The parameter files contain keywords and
corresponding arguments for specifying plot parameters (such as data
file names, data file formats, plot type, plot style, axis type, axis
labels, and more). Eleven example plots, corresponding examples of
Octave code or C code for creating the data files, and corresponding
parameter files are included. The program can be run from a terminal
window or from a graphical user interface.
The current version is @code{gsegrafix-1.0.5}. Version@tie{}1.0.5
added data files for Examples@tie{}1 and@tie{}7, for use in becoming
familiar with the program. There are links to each of these files in
the corresponding example descriptions. The program includes an HTML
help file, and an XML help file was added in this version.
Version 1.0.6 is under development and includes two additional
keywords: @code{background_color} and @code{background_image}. The
former enables the background color of the plot window to be specified
as either white, the default, or black. If black is chosen, the plot
box, tick marks, axis labels, title, and text are white. The keyword
@code{}background_image enables a background image, such as a map, to
be displayed in the plot box. The image can be scaled in four
different ways by specifying one of the parameter values:
@code{center}, @code{fill}, @code{scale}, or @code{zoom}.
@node GSL
@unnumbered GSL (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl})
From Brian Gough: The GNU Scientific Library is a numerical library
written in C. It provides a large collection of mathematical routines
such as random number generators, special functions, fourier
transforms and least-squares fitting. There are over 1000 routines in
total with an extensive test suite.
The role of the project is to provide an alternative to the well-known
proprietary numerical libraries, which hinder scientific cooperation
by preventing the sharing of scientific software.
The project has been in stable release for 10 years, and has
maintained API stability throughout that time. Ongoing work continues
on bug-fixing, particularly improving the stability of special
functions, and a 1.14 maintenance release was made earlier this year.
Currently the project does not have sufficient contributors to tackle
major developments, and is limited to bug fixing. A good knowledge of
numerical methods is needed to work on the project---anyone interested
in helping should contact @email{bug-gsl@@gnu.org} for more
information.
@node GSRC
@unnumbered GSRC (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/gsrc})
From Brian Gough: The GNU Source Release Collection (GSRC) is a build
system for GNU packages. The goal is to make it easy to install the
latest GNU releases from source in your home directory on an existing
distribution.
GSRC simplifies this process by automatically downloading and building
packages and their dependencies. You only need a single @code{./configure
&& make} to get everything, as usual.
For those familiar with BSD systems, this is similar to BSD Ports.
GSRC uses GAR, a build system written in GNU Make by Nick Moffit, and
GARstow by Adam Sampson. GSRC is also similar to the GARNOME system
for GNOME.
There are currently 136 GNU packages in GSRC which build and install
successfully, including GCC, Guile, GnuPG, Emacs, coreutils, GnuTLS
and many others. Packages are updated several times a week, as new
releases come up.
The whole collection is also built regularly on the GCC compile farm
and a weekly report posted on @url{http://planet.gnu}.org with the
current build status of all GNU packages
(@url{http://chapters.gnu.org/~bjg/gsrc/summary/}), you can also check
the complete build logs there.
Goals for the project are to support the remaining GNU
packages---particularly those with complex dependencies, such as Gnash
and GnuCash, and to also make the latest alpha releases available as
well (this has already been done for a few projects). Additional help
from people familiar with those packages is welcome.
@node Guile
@unnumbered Guile (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/guile})
From Ludovic Court@`es: GNU Guile is an implementation of the Scheme
programming language that can be embedded in applications to allow
users to extend them. Extensibility empowers users to leverage
software freedom by making it easier to start making changes. Just as
Emacs Lisp allowed unanticipated applications to be written within the
Emacs environment, Guile should do the same for other GNU
applications. It should spread the Emacs nature to the rest of GNU.
Guile has undergone major changes over the last couple of years,
resulting in 15 pre-releases---labeled 1.9.x. This will lead to the
2.0 stable series, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2011.
The 1.8 stable series was released in 2006. It offered many
improvements such as support for exact rational numbers,
multi-threading, and a better C programming interface.
Guile 2.0 is a breakthrough in Guile's history. First and foremost,
it is based on a compiler and a virtual machine, and comes with a
powerful read-eval-print loop (REPL) and debugger. The compiler
compiles Scheme code to bytecode, applying well-known optimizations.
As a result, Scheme code runs noticeably faster with Guile@tie{}2.0.
Compilation can occur transparently: when the compiled form of a
module is not found in cache, it is automatically compiled before
being run.
In addition, Guile 2.0 has a wealth of exciting new features.
Hygienic macros are supported natively and well integrated with the
module system---they are what makes Scheme itself extensible. It
supports Unicode, as well as most of R6RS, the latest revision of the
Scheme programming language.
A dynamic foreign function interface (FFI) is provided, allowing
bindings to C libraries to be written entirely in Scheme. Also new in
2.0 is support for composable continuations (a.k.a.@: ``prompts''), a
novel control flow mechanism. New modules include web tools for HTTP
and URIs, XML/SXML, pattern matching, LALR parsing, purely functional
hash lists, and code coverage, to name a few.
While Guile 2.0 remains primarily an implementation of Scheme, its
compiler comes with a front-end for ECMAScript---one more choice for
users seeking to extend their applications. An Emacs Lisp front-end
is also available. It is the result of work towards the unification
of Guile and Emacs, the flagships of extensibility in GNU.
2011 promises to be another exciting year for Guile. We believe
Guile@tie{}2.0 is a great tool to push extensibility further and
enhance software freedom!
@node Hello
@unnumbered Hello (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/hello})
From Karl Berry: GNU Hello remains a complete example package,
attempting to exemplify some best practices for GNU packages. For
example, it uses Automake for configuration, Gettext for
internationalization, Help2man to avoid maintaining separate man
pages, and Gnulib to share common sources.
For examples in other programming languages, please see Gettext. The
Automake manual also contains several examples worked from scratch.
@node Hurd
@unnumbered Hurd (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd})
From Olaf Buddenhagen, Arne Babenhauserheide, Thomas Schwinge: Yeah,
that's quite right: this project is still alive!
According to our mission statement, the goal is creating @emph{a
general-purpose kernel suitable for the GNU operating system, which is
viable for everyday use, and gives users and programs as much control
over their computing environment as possible}. It has a unique
multi-server microkernel-based architecture---bringing advanced
operating system research to the mainstream. More concretely, it's a
collection of user-space server processes that run on the GNU Mach
microkernel.
The Hurd doesn't fully deliver on the @emph{everyday usability} goal
yet, but it is seeing continuous improvement---and 2010 has been no
exception. Let's take a look at the progress throughout the year.
@itemize @bullet
@item
Apart from having done a lot of other work, Samuel Thibault, our Jack
of all trades, merged his development branch that added Xen domU
support to GNU Mach, which makes it possible to run a GNU/Hurd system
as a Xen guest. Development of this started in 2007, and since then
it has been heavily tested by using it for the Debian GNU/Hurd build
servers, most of our public GNU/Hurd systems,
@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/public_hurd_boxen.html}, and the
Hurd project's wiki web server.
@item
We had Zheng Da work on a new hardware device driver framework, which
is based on the Dresden L4 (Fiasco) group's DDE project, and allows
running modern Linux kernel drivers as user-space server processes.
Many network cards already work perfectly with this new framework.
(It has not yet been integrated into the mainstream Hurd code base, so
it needs to be compiled and set up by hand.) Other driver classes,
such as hard disk controllers, will require further work.
@item
As in the previous years, we again participated in the Google Summer
of Code 2010. Olaf Buddenhagen is our main guy for organizing this.
J@'er@'emie Koenig ported the modern Debian Installer to Debian
GNU/Hurd. Installation images using the new installer are replacing
the previous CD images, which were using an installer based on the old
Debian boot floppies (and running under the Linux kernel)---Philip
Charles has been maintaining these single-handedly for almost ten
years! The new installer images are available from
@url{http://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-i386/installer/cdimage/}.
Emilio Pozuelo Monfort was investigating specific compatibility
problems exposed by the extensive test suites coming with some
software packages. Emilio's analysis uncovered a number of
programming errors in the Hurd code, and he fixed several of them. As
these typically affected other programs too, this improved stability
and compatibility in general.
@item
J@'er@'emie Koenig created a new implementation of a @command{procfs}
translator, which is considerably more robust and efficient than the
previous one. Tools such as @command{top} can now be used without
problems.
Some other translators (@command{gopherfs}, @command{netio},
@command{tarfs}) which have been created by external contributors in
the past have been fixed up by Manuel Menal, and packaged in Debian.
Thus, some of the results of Hurd's extensible architecture are now
easier to access, and these updated translators can serve as examples
for other developers to implement their own ideas.
@item
In addition to various general stability, compatibility, and
portability fixes, several people (Samuel Thibault, Pino Toscano,
Emilio Pozuelo Monfort, and others) have been working on fixing issues
with specific Debian packages. So far, about 68% of all Debian
packages are also available for Debian GNU/Hurd.
@item
Michael Walker started the Arch Hurd distribution, and together with
other enthusiastic Arch developers (Allan McRae, Matthias Lanzinger,
Alexander Preisinger, Stephen Gilles, Diego Nieto Cid) they got it
working in an amazingly short amount of time, both as an installable
system, and a live CD. So now there is a choice between two
well-featured distributions for the Hurd. These new people of course
also help forwarding Hurd development in general---Diego in particular
contributed various patches to the Hurd console and other components.
@item
Carl Fredrik Hammar finished and presented his thesis, ``Generalizing
mobility for the Hurd'',
@url{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2010-01/msg00078.html},
and passed with distinction.
@end itemize
This is a very short digest of what happened in the last year. You
can read our regular ``Month of the Hurd'' at
@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news.html}, or by subscribing to
our RSS feed at @url{http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/index.rss}.
If you are interested, for example, in doing a university project on a
multi-server microkernel-based operating system, or if you are
interested in contributing to Hurd development in general, please see
@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/contributing.html}. Or just
talk to us at @email{bug-hurd@@gnu.org} or the @code{#hurd} IRC
channel on freenode.
@node Texinfo
@unnumbered Texinfo (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo})
From Karl Berry: We hope the next major release of Texinfo will be
made in 2011, after several years of development. Thanks to my
colleague Patrice Dumas, the Makeinfo program has been completely
rewritten in Perl while retaining essentially complete compatibility.
The new program is based on and is as compatible as possible with
@command{texi2html}. It will provide vastly better support for HTML
customization, Unicode, additional back-ends, and so on. If you want
to try it now, it's in the development sources.
@file{texinfo.tex}, as a separable file, has been updated separately
on an ongoing basis. The current version is available from
@url{http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/texinfo/texinfo.tex} (and from Gnulib),
and we encourage you to always get the current version when making a
release.
@node XBoard
@unnumbered XBoard (@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard})
From Arun Persaud: XBoard is a graphical user interface to chess in
all its major forms (and many others). Over the last year XBoard
development has seen three new releases fixing lots of bugs and
including many new features with another major release just around the
corner. We now support many more variations of chess (xiangqi, shogi,
makruk, as well as better support for variations like crazyhouse,
bughouse and many more). Also, the support for computer chess has
been improved.
An ongoing effort is to merge the code of XBoard and its so-called
``Winboard'' companion back into one code base and adapt it to use GTK
for the GUI front end. If you are interested in this and are willing
to help, feel free to contact us at @email{xboard-devel@@gnu.org}. We
can always use more help! You can of course also contact us to
discuss other issues/ideas too.
@bye